Who We Are
by Lalaith Quetzalli
Summary: "If you need him… he will be there" That's what you said to him, in that video. But that wasn't true, was it? That was just another lie you told, another attempt to get rid of him. Because that's who you are, a liar, a murderer, a monster… but guess what? It's not who I am, never has been. Truth is, you never knew me at all (Post Season/Series 4) (Warning for minor character death)


Don't want to spoiler anything. So all I'll say for now is, mind the tags and remember the following:

\+ I don't own Sherlock, at all.

\+ I am not British (so my English may not always be what you would expect).

\+ I am actually Mexican (which means English is actually my second language... still, I try to clean my work up as best as I can).

\+ I don't have a Beta, all mistakes are my own, though I do try to check things through before posting anything.

\+ As should be obvious by this point, I really, really don't like Mary; if you do, this might not be the fic for you... and I'm afraid I cannot apologize for that, I hate her too much to even pretend.

As always, my deepest thanks to Ariana DeVere for her transcripts, I honestly don't know where I (all of us really) would be without her amazing work.

P.S. The end notes have an explanation of where this fic comes from, in case you're interested, though I recommend you don't read those before reading the fic itself, so as not to have any spoilers.

P.S.S. For some reason I cannot fully explain (or comprehend myself) I truly recommend listening to Hidden Citizen's "I (Just) Died in Your Arms" while reading this.

* * *

Who We Are

 _By: Lalaith Quetzalli_

" _If you need him… he will be there" That's what you said to him, in that video. But that wasn't true, was it? That was just another lie you told, another attempt to get rid of him. Because that's who you are, a liar, a murderer, a monster… but guess what? It's not who I am, never has been. Truth is, you never knew me at all_

" _If he thinks you need him, I swear to you… he will be there._ That's what you said. What you said to him, in that video letter, the one you supposedly arranged to be delivered 'in case you died'. But that wasn't true, was it? That was just another lie you told, another attempt to get rid of him. Or at least, that's what you hoped, the real reason why you told him that. You hoped things would go in a very different way… that he'd end up dead. Because that's who you are, a liar, a murderer, a monster, but guess what? Wanna guess where you went wrong? Some would say you had me pegged all along, but since you and I both know you did not believe the things you were telling Sherlock in that video, it's easy enough to see that was your mistake. The person you pictured when you said all those things? The person you thought I was, the one who would have failed to get there in time, to save his friend, again… It's not who I am, it never has been. Truth is, you never knew me at all Mary…"

The tension is so thick, I almost feel like I cannot breathe… though that might be caused by the situation we're all in… all being myself, Sherlock and… that woman… Rosamund Mary… or as we used to know her: Mary, my wife… my 'deceased' wife!

I suppose it all started when Rosie turned one; though we were so happy, we didn't see it. We were trying to put the whole mess with Sherrinford and Eurus behind us (or as much as we could, considering Sherlock's weekly visits to the prison to visit his sister and play the violin with her… still, it made him happy, I'd never be against something that did that). It being the beginning of April, the temperatures were slowly beginning to rise, but still quite low, especially for little kids.

The party was Mrs. Hudson's idea. It was my belief that Rosie was much too young to ever remember if she'd had or hadn't had a birthday party when she turned one, and after what seemed like forever, Sherlock eventually pointed out that every kid loved birthday parties, and even if she couldn't quite remember as she grew, there would always be the pictures; and she was a genius, so who knew? Perhaps she'd remember… (I hoped not, not for any party, or lack of one, I hoped she would never have to remember the mess that was that first year of her life, the mess I was for quite a while). It was the first time Sherlock disagreed with me openly about anything since Mary's death, and particularly since that… that bloody day in Smith's morgue (the day I'd never stop regretting, would never stop wishing I could somehow take back). So in the end I gave in, we had the party.

That night, when I was putting her to bed, I noticed her holding onto a doll. Not the simple, cheap dolls I'd have expected any of our neighbors and acquaintances to give her, but a fine looking porcelain doll, with a hand-painted face and eyes that looked eerily like Rosie's own. When I asked who'd given her the doll… I was so sure she'd said Nana, and while Mrs. Hudson later assured me she had nothing to do, I still had reason to believe Mrs. Holmes could have done it. The doll would have been just her style, and ever since the mess back in Christmas she'd insisted on me considering her and her husband family, claiming she saw me as much as a son as Sherlock and Mycroft. What she really said that night… it never occurred to me, because it was simply unthinkable, impossible… I should've known better.

I really, really should have. It's not like it hadn't happened before, someone 'dying' before my eyes, only to come back later on.

It still didn't occur to me, not until this very morning, when I was looking through all the party's pictures, and I saw one that showed a woman handing the doll to Rosie, a woman with very short dark mahogany hair and green eyes. It took me a few seconds to fully grasp what my eyes were seeing, part of my brain short-circuiting at the seeming impossibility… It was happening , again!

I barely thought to pick up Rosie's bag before I had her in my arms and I was running straight out of our little place (the same house where I still lived with her… Mrs. Hudson had asked me if I was ever planning on moving back, and yet I didn't dare, not yet, not until I was sure we… I would be able to handle it) and hailing the first cab I see, demanding to be taken to Baker Street. The ride seemed to last forever, probably made worse by my own tension. I'd just entered and was about to rush upstairs, when it occurred to me that if things really were as I was beginning to suspect, it was a really bad idea to take my daughter with me. So instead I went to Mrs. Hudson. If she was surprised by my not knocking she said nothing. She was obviously delighted by my presence in the flat… not so much when I began speaking.

"Mrs. Hudson..." I told her very seriously.

"John darling, is everything alright?" She asked me.

It really, really wasn't. I showed her the picture, told her what I knew thus far, what I suspected (what I feared). Asked her to take Rosie and if she heard anything, or if she even had a bad feeling, to run. Phone Mycroft, whatever she considered necessary; I didn't care as long as the two of them stayed safe.

Then, having made those arrangements, I went up seventeen steps, to 221B… to the one place I still call home deep inside…

It was much as I expected, I found the two of them standing in opposite sides of the living room, tense and silent. They didn't seem to notice my presence at first, not until I strode into the middle of the room, throwing the original picture, as well as a close-up, both which I'd printed right before leaving the house onto the coffee-table.

"I suppose there's no need to talk about this, then." I commented as evenly as I could.

"It's taken you a painfully long time, John..." She drawled. "Then again, you were always a bit slow, wasn't he Sherlock?"

I knew she was trying to get a rise out of me, but I cared little about that. Still, much as I may not want to admit it, she'd hurt me, and I couldn't help but respond to that.

"You were dead," I told her in my most vicious tone. "Why would I need to think about you after that? It would have changed nothing."

"So what? I died… for him!" She hissed, definitely affected by my words. "And you… what? You just forgot I ever existed?"

I didn't answer to that, I couldn't.

"No, you didn't." She laughed, a cold, fake laugh. "You couldn't just forget me. I know that. Wanna know how I do? Because I watched you… You're a bloody failure, both as a man and as a father, did you know that?"

That one did hurt, mostly because I knew she was right. Still, I did my best not to let it show. I wasn't going to give her that kind of advantage.

"I kept an eye on you, on all of you..." She went on. "How much did you drink in those days John? How many times did you fall asleep pissed off your arse? How many times did you push the responsibility of your daughter onto someone else?!"

"That's none of your business Mary." I snapped, unable to fully hold back. "You chose to walk away. You chose this! You've no right to complain about what I did once you were gone!"

"Really? That's what you're going with?" She arched a brow. "Far as you knew I was dead!"

"Makes no difference." I was surprisingly honest about that. "You'd already left us once Mary. I promised you I'd protect you, both Sherlock and I did. And you knew we'd do it, that you and Rosie would be safe… and still you chose to run away. Why? Because you didn't trust us. You never did, I'd suspected that beforehand, and what happened then proved it." I couldn't hold back the sigh before adding. "I always knew you wouldn't be staying forever. That one day I'd get home from work, or perhaps from a case with Sherlock, and you'd be gone… just like that. And I'd never see you again."

"Why grieve me then?" She demanded. "If you always expected me to go."

I did not answer her, how could I even begin to explain? The answer to that question is so long and complex… I couldn't begin to find the right words to say it. From the corner of my eyes I saw Sherlock tense. I wondered how much he knew of what was running through my mind. We'd never talked about it. Aside from my apology regarding what I'd done in that morgue, when I beat him up (an apology he insisted was not necessary at all, though he eventually accepted it and gave me his forgiveness with no hesitation… though I still couldn't fully forgive myself). We'd never truly talked about it, about what had happened during those weeks; and yet, it wouldn't have surprised me, if he'd known all along.

"Don't even think about lying to me!" She snarled to me. "I saw you! Pissed off your arse! Saw you turn Sherlock away! I even heard about the nice little beating you gave him! Right before you went and saved him..."

The moment she said those words it came to me: I could still remember Smith, the hospital, the morgue… even if I lived a hundred years, I'd never be able to forget that terrible day. How close I came to losing Sherlock all over again… and that was what I focused on it that moment. With everything that had happened, there were a few things I'd never thought much about later on. Like the things that she'd said in that video. Things that, at first sight, appeared to be meant to be helpful, to show Sherlock to way to 'save me' to save our friendship, except… I never wanted to think much about it, about the fact that if I hadn't been in such a funk about… everything, I would have been that man. And Mary had to have known that, she knew how I was when I got angry, how I could hold a grudge forever, until something made me react. She'd have known that that crazy plan would have never worked, unless I knew beforehand that Sherlock was in danger. And I was never meant to find that DVD… Which meant only one thing:

" _If he thinks you need him, I swear to you… he will be there._ " It's suddenly so obvious, I can't believe it didn't occurr to me before. "That's what you said. What you said to him, in that video letter, the one you supposedly arranged to be delivered 'in case you died'. But that wasn't true, was it? That was just another lie you told, another attempt to get rid of him. Or at least, that's what you hoped, the real reason what you told him that. You hoped things would go in a very different way… that he'd end up dead. Because that's who you are, a liar, a murderer, a monster, but guess what? Wanna guess where you went wrong? Some would say you had me pegged all along, but since you and I both know you did not believe the things you were telling Sherlock in that video, it's easy enough to see that was your mistake. The person you pictured when you said all those things? The person you thought I was, the one who would have failed to get there in time, to save his friend, again… It's not who I am, it never has been. Truth is, you never knew me at all Mary…"

She snarls then, absolutely furious.

"You were supposed to be with me!" She practically screeches. "You married me!"

"Yes, I did." I nod, knowing what comes next will tip the scales. "And that was the worst mistake of my whole life."

She's so furious, much like I expected, yet once she attacks, she doesn't throw herself at me, but at Sherlock, who's looking a tiny bit shocked, he doesn't react in time. But I do. I take hold of her arm, pulling her away from Sherlock, and bodily throwing her to the other side of the room, she falls onto one of the armchairs, which then tips back along with her. She goes sub-vocal as she snarls at me, jumping to her feet.

"I will kill him!" She hisses at me. "I will kill him, and then you'll see John. You'll see we're meant to be together!"

"No, we're not!" I purposefully place myself before her, blocking her way to Sherlock (I won't allow her to hurt him again, not ever). "Wanna know why I was so messed up after your death? The truth. It wasn't actually because you dying. Not really. To be honest, the first thing I felt when I fully realized you were dead, was relief."

She stares at me, frozen, eyes wide open in shock. She obviously didn't expect that, but it's the absolute truth. The truth that, before that moment, I hadn't allowed myself to admit to.

"Did you really never wonder why I forgave you at all Mary?" I ask her with a light sigh. "As much as you and Sherlock seem to find fun in mocking me and my intelligence, I'll remind you I am a doctor. I got top marks in school, was one of the best in my generation. I might not be a genius, but I'm certainly not stupid. That whole story Sherlock built up, about your shooting skills, about the 'surgery', about how you 'shot him to save him'… I knew it was crap the moment it was said."

"And yet you still forgave me." She murmurs. "You loved me..."

"Not at all. I stopped loving you the moment I knew it was you who shot Sherlock. And I've a feeling you knew that, you knew it all along… You hoped, of course, that he'd die for sure. He'd left the hospital before he should have, and then the mess with Magnussen. The 'suicide mission'. What? Didn't think I knew about that? Yes, I am a doctor, but I'm also a former soldier… and I've seen more than anyone will ever find in my records. I know a suicide mission when I hear one. Just like I know when someone claims to be retired and really isn't..."

"John..."

"I always knew you were more than just a nurse. It was quite obvious, in the way you walk, the way you talk, the very way you hold yourself. Only the women who've worked for one agency or another do that. I thought you were like me, retired, so I never mentioned it. And then you shot my best-friend, and you had the gall to try and cover it up, to try and present yourself as the victim, rather than the murderer you so clearly were…"

"You forgave me!"

"No, I didn't. I never could have. I told you what you wanted to hear, what was necessary, to make sure you wouldn't go after my best-friend, finish the job. And then I stayed with you even afterwards, to make sure our daughter would be alright. And through it all I feared. Every day and every night, whenever I left her with you for more than ten minutes, I feared that you would hurt her. Or worse, that I'd come find that not only you were gone, but you had taken her with you. So yes, the first thing I felt when you died, was relief. I no longer had to fear losing my baby, because you were no longer there, no longer a danger to her."

"That doesn't explain why you stayed away from him!" She's trying to hard to hold onto something, anything…

"I did." I admit. "The first thing I felt was relief and the second… the second was rage. But not at Sherlock. The things I said to him that day… it wasn't because he hadn't saved you, but because he was such an idiot he almost got himself killed! Again! I explained that to him in that letter. It was all I could do in that moment, because my anger didn't allow me to do much more. I was livid, to him for almost dying, to you for dying. For dying saving him, for making it impossible for me to hate you anymore. Because I did, I hated you, for what you did to him, you killed him, You know? Sherlock died after you shot him in Magnussen's office. Whatever miracle got him back, it was not of your making, but his. I'd been holding onto my hate for you, using it to keep me strong, to hold on… and then you died. You seemed to have sacrificed yourself to save Sherlock, which made it harder to hold onto that hate, and I needed so much to do so… so I turned it onto myself. I began hating myself, for not being able to hate you anymore, for not having been there to keep the situation in that Aquarium from getting as bad as it did." I am practically ranting but I cannot bring myself to care. "So many people came to me, expressing their condolences, trying to comfort me, for having lost my wife… and I could never tell them how much I did not mourn her. How much better I felt with her, with you gone! And that made me feel like crap, like a liar… all because of you."

"I told Sherlock that day that I would lose you… and I'd never let that happen." She reminds me, like she needs to make things any worse!

"It was never about your past Mary, I could have learned to live with that." I shrug. "No, you lost me the moment you shot Sherlock. At that point there was no going back, ever. All that followed, you being a client, the 'forgiveness'… it was all a lie. And I've a feeling you knew that already."

"Sherlock saved me for you!"

"That he did. He's more forgiving than I am. But that matters very little. You must have known, deep down, that the state we were in… it couldn't have lasted. For gods sake! I spent weeks flirting with another woman through texts! Every time you so much as left the room!"

"What?!" The snarl tells me that she probably hadn't known about that.

"It's the truth. I was going to tell you that day. When you supposedly died."

"Oh John… I'd have forgiven you..." How can she still not see it?!

"I was never interested in you forgiving me, not in that moment. Perhaps afterwards I felt bad, but truth be told if I had told you the truth that day, that would have just been the first step. We were never going to last Mary… I think you know that as well as I."

"We could have! You loved me once! You could have loved me again!"

"Not again, not after what you did to Sherlock."

"But if he'd died… if he'd died doing something stupid and I'd returned to you, in your grief. I'd have been your savior… again. You'd have loved me again."

And there it is, finally, what I suspected. That was her plan all along. She really never expected me to save Sherlock from Smith.

"You really thought I'd be too late, didn't you?" I don't even wait for an answer. "Or worse even, you never expected me to try at all. Why should I? I didn't even know Sherlock would need my help. The drugs had him behaving so erratically… and I was using my rage as a security blanket at that point. I'd have never seen the truth on my own, not then. And you knew that. What you didn't expect was for me to try, to at least try, and then to find that DVD..."

"You are mine!"

"No! I'm not! I am not yours Mary! And wanna know why? Because Mary Morstan, my wife, doesn't exist! She never did!"

"I will not lose you again!"

What follows happens so fast… I didn't notice when Sherlock moved from behind me, busy as I was arguing with my 'fake wife'… but I notice when she raises her gun. I know what she's going to do, and what I have to do. I don't even have to think about it at all, my reaction is instinctive. I raise my arm, the one holding my own gun, and I shoot.

I don't even watch her fall, there's no need, instead I turn and focus completely on Sherlock. Who's looking at me with evident shock.

"John… John you just… you just killed your wife."

"No Sherlock..." I assure him softly, caressing a cheek with my free hand. "She killed my wife. And she did so the day she shot you." I can see his confusion and I need him to understand, I need it like I need air… "I never forgave her for that, Sherlock. You have to know that, you have to… I could never forgive her for shooting you. Never."

"You chose her." He reminds me, so very softly, it still feels like a stab into my chest.

"I did." I admit, holding back the need to rub at the invisible wound. "And it was the worst mistake I made in my whole life."

"It wasn't so bad." He offers. "It gave you Rosie."

"That it did. Rosie is the only reason I ever went back to her. That, and fear that, if she saw you as a threat, she might try to finish the job. All I could do was wait, for Rosie to be born, for the right time to get away… And then the thing with AJ happened, and Norbury… You have to know Sherlock that I never blamed you for Mary's death. Not really. I blamed you for putting yourself in danger, and her for seemingly giving her life for yours and thus making it impossible for me to hate her anymore… and myself for wanting nothing more than to go back to you, to beg you to let me come home… But I couldn't do it, because people would talk, and no matter how much I wanted to tell myself that it didn't matter, that nothing but you mattered, I couldn't make myself do it, so instead I kept making things harder on both of us!" I swallow. "I went to a new therapist to try and get better. The last thing you needed was to have to deal with me when I was such a mess. And then I saw you and you were… you looked as if you were still trying to kill yourself. It drove me crazy! I was trying to put myself back together, so I might be able to go back home, but what would the point of it all be, if you weren't there by then?!"

"I'm sorry John, I am so sorry." He's looking straight at me, and there's so much grief in his eyes, I cannot believe I ever thought he'd no feelings…

"No Sherlock, it's not your fault, it's never was… and that's something I should have told you a long time ago. I am sorry..."

"You were right you know?" He comments softly. "That day, when you reminded me about the vow I made to you… I failed you..."

That vow… I can still remember what he'd said, practically word for word: _"...whatever it takes, whatever happens, from now on I swear I will always be there, always,"_

"No Sherlock, you never did." I assure him. "You did everything you could for me, for us. Nearly died more times than I ever wish to remember… you literally died once!" I had to swallow around the knot in my throat at the memory of that awful night. "Never do that again Sherlock. Promise me, never again..."

"I… I cannot do that John..."

"I'm not worth your life Sherlock..."

"Yes, you are!"

"Sherlock..."

"You're worth so much to me John..."

"As are you to me Sherlock. To me you will always be the most important. Always."

I'm not sure how it happens, who starts it? (Was it him? Or me? Does it really matter?). From one moment to the next, we're kissing. It's like that one moment somehow encompasses a thousand others, all the important moments we've had: like that first dinner at Angelo's, our first run across London, standing panting in the foyer, going for Chinese together after I killed the cabby… and on and on, all the important moments we've had, good and bad, big and small, all the moments when we could have kissed… and I can hardly believe it's taken us so long to get there! At least, we finally did, finally…

 **xXx**

Mycroft arrives eventually. Called by Mrs. Hudson after she left the flat, taking Rosie with her (it happened almost from the start, when the loud sound of Mary falling along with the armchair made her decide it was safer to get out).

Anthea enters the room first, gun ahead of her, not relaxing a bit even after seeing Sherlock and I, not until she sees Mary on the floor, the gunshot wound clear on her forehead. She says nothing, just nods at me once, before calling to Mycroft.

He doesn't ask any questions either. Though I can hear as he orders Anthea (or Anna, as I hear Sherlock call her) to have someone investigate how Mary managed to fake her death, and how exactly she got back. By the time a clean-up crew arrives to take care of the body we know that she used a passport in the name of Agatha Jenkins to get into the country. A man in the funeral parlor owed her a favor, he got her out and then gave us an urn with ashes he claimed were hers… we all knew Mary had wanted to be cremated, so it was no surprise (and my relief was so great it never occurred to me to make sure it was truly over…).

There's still a lot we don't know, but I don't care anymore. Mycroft has promised to supervise the disposal himself, and I trust him. This time it's really over, she's gone. I can finally rest… well no, not yet, there's one more thing I've yet to do…

The moment I turn to look at Sherlock, he's staring straight at me, I wonder if he knows already what I'm going to say… still, it needs to be said, he deserves to hear it, deserves to make the choice. Even if we kissed… that doesn't mean the past didn't happen, all the mistakes we made.

"I want to come home..." I finally whisper, holding onto him (not quite sure when I got close enough to touch him).

"You're already home." He assures me.

I'm so thankful for his words… I don't understand how literal they are until a couple of hours later, when a few of Mycroft's men arrive carrying a bunch of boxes with my stuff and Rosie's (Mary's was given away, thrown in the bins, burnt… I've no idea, nor do I really care). The house will be sold and the money put in a trust fund in Rosie's name, that's just fine with me, though there is one thing: I'm changing her name.

With Mary finally gone for good I don't want anything to remain of her, especially not in my daughter. She deserves more than to bear the name of a woman who never loved either of us, who was so selfish, so insane, she believed she could make me love her after taking away all the people I'd loved first, and while holding our own daughter hostage… I want to keep the Rosie, because that's what everyone calls her, and it's a pretty name, but not the 'Rosamund Mary'… It takes a few days, but eventually we decide on Rose Catherine Watson and Mycroft helps push things through faster than it usually would happen (and who knows? Perhaps one day we might be able to add Holmes… to both her name and mine).

 **xXx**

A week after the mess I find myself unable to sleep and cannot help but pull on my robe and pad silently to the sitting room, where I find Sherlock playing a bit.

"Oh… did I wake you up?" He asks softly, unsure.

"Not at all, I just couldn't sleep." I admit. "Want a cuppa?"

"Sure." He nods, still holding his violin a bit gingerly, as if unsure.

"You know, one of the things I missed the most, when I didn't live here, was your playing." I admit quietly as the water slowly boils.

I don't need to see him smiling at that, I can almost feel his preening, which is confirmed but a moment later, when he begins truly playing. A melody I've heard several times, it sounds so very much like what he composed back when the… 'thing' with the Woman happened. Almost, but not quite… I can tell there are differences, important ones, and I cannot tell why exactly, but there's something about the melody that draws me in, ensnares me… there's a part of me that believes I could spend the rest of my life just listening to this man play, and that would be enough for me to be perfectly happy…

The melody reaches a close right as I approach him, cup of tea in hand, except that instead of handing it to him I place it on the nearest empty surface before cupping his face in my hands and kissing him full on. Perfectly happy indeed…

It's ironic really. How Mary's 'master plan' to pull us apart (to kill Sherlock) was, in some ways, what finally brought us together. And not only that, it also served to show who we are, all of us. There's more to us that just the legends. More than the detective and his blogger… and unlike what Mary said to us in her (supposedly) post-mortem video, it does matter. It matters who we are beyond the legend, beyond our titles and what the world outside our door might know of us. What we are to ourselves, and to each other. What we are… but more importantly: who we are. We're more than just a (former) junkie and a soldier/doctor, more than a detective and blogger, we're two men who love each other, who will do and have done everything for one another, who will never give… and all that, it does matter. It's what makes us who we are. Sherlock Holmes and John Watson…

"I love you..." I whisper against my detective, my beloved, my Sherlock… his sweet lips still pressed against mine.

"I know." He answers simply.

I feel like I'm about to laugh. And the light in his gorgeous eyes tells me he knows, he did it on purpose, since I half-forced him to watch Star Wars with me yesterday, after we finally finished getting Rosie and myself fully installed, and making sure the place was fully child-proof (there wasn't too much to do on that last front, to be honest, someone, either Sherlock or the people who helped with fixing the place after the grenade, took care of most of that before we moved in). I never get the chance to reply though, as he chooses that exact moment to kiss me again.

I have no idea what the future might have in store for us. Good things and bad both, some big, some small… Sherlock is still a consulting detective, and I'm still his partner in every way that counts (every way the world knows, and especially all the ways they don't know about, and don't need to ever know). Cases will come, some easy, some hard. We'll probably get in trouble (quite likely a lot), make enemies (possibly even an arch-enemy somewhere along the way…) But I believe that, as long as we're together we can handle anything that might be thrown at us, no matter how hard… we've done pretty well thus far, after all (except for those two years when we most definitely were not together, and which we both agree shall be deleted… permanently). Yes, together we're invincible…

…and perfectly happy indeed.

* * *

So... I don't know who, if anyone, reads author's notes anymore, but in case you're interested, here we go. Sometime in the last week or so (last ten days for sure). Someone in the Johnlocked group asked for prompts, so they might write a fic. I offered two: one about John only going back to Mary because he believed Sherlock had some kind of plan, not because he actually forgave her (and I actually used that already, in 'The Plan', the final piece in the "John's Vow" series/collection); the other was about Mary faking her death in the aquarium and then sending those videos as a way to set up Sherlock to die, so she might then return and 'save' John from his grief, again, believing he'd love her again... only things, of course, did not go quite to plan. I had a vague idea for a fic, nothing quite concrete, and then I watched sulliesp's "Sherlock & John: He Will be There(4x02)" video on youtube... you really, really need to watch that if you haven't. I went crazy. Literally listened to Hidden Citizen's "I (Just) Died in Your Arms" on repeat while I wrote this. So, am I crazy or what? (also, some of the first prompt slipped in too).

While this probably is not as important, I imagine Mary to have been about a month pregnant when she got married. Also, in my headcannon she and John did not marry in May, as some timelines state (as the invitation that is glimpsed at some point in the series states) but in the first week of August... which would actually fit better with the dates of John's blog. Following that, she was about six months or so when Sherlock was almost sent to Eastern Europe, Rosie was born in the first week of April (I honestly believe that T6T takes place over a lapse of several months), Mary probably 'died' when Rosie was somewhere between six and eight months old (depending how long you think John and he were at odds afterwards, anywhere between six and twelve weeks); and, of course, it all came to a head days before Sherlock's birthday, in January, a little over a year after he was almost sent on that suicide mission.

Following that same idea, the thing with Eurus and Sherrinford would have happened in the following weeks. It'd all have been over by Rose's first birthday in April, when the first mention of things in this fic finally takes place (the main part of the story itself I imagine happening two or three days after that).

Also, from the moment I watched the 'epilogue of sorts' at the end of season 4, I imagine that John at some point moved back to 221B, taking Rosie with them; and since there are only two bedrooms, he eventually ended sharing with Sherlock (either because they finally got together, or sharing a room finally prompted that). Then Moftiss told us that no, John did not go back, he stayed in the house he shared with Mary... well I don't agree! So, here you go! (As you've seen, I don't like Mary, hence why I went as far as changing Rosie's name somewhat... hope you liked that too).

So, that's that. Hope you liked the fic. Please don't forget to comment, kudo if you liked... I love getting a response for my readers! See ya around!


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